6 Quick Tips for Using LinkedIn for Recruiting

The world’s most popular social platform for professionals, LinkedIn boasts more than 433 million members across the globe. The platform is great for staying in touch with former colleagues, networking with new peers, and promoting your brand (or yourself) via content. It’s also a platform that’s great for recruiting and sourcing top talent.

Whether you’ve used LinkedIn for recruiting or not, here are six tips to keep in mind that should improve your recruitment strategies — or increase the likelihood your initial attempts are successful.

1. Pimp your profile

The more complete your profile is, the more likely it is that prospective candidates will want to connect and interact with you. So make sure you have a clear, up-to-date profile picture. Look professional — plain and simple. Your LinkedIn profile picture probably shouldn’t be the kind of photo you’d post on Facebook. Fill out your profile thoroughly, and be sure to include appropriate keywords that top talent will be searching for.

2. Use InMail strategically

LinkedIn allows recruiters to reach out to other professionals through InMail, which is essentially a messaging service that lives within the social platform. You have one chance to make a first impression. Send detailed, personalized messages to the candidates you’re interested in. Messages that look like impersonal canned responses will likely be ignored.

3. Broaden your search

In some instances, organizations need to limit their searches to candidates who are nearby geographically. But it’s 2016. Thanks to technology, it’s easier than ever to cast a wide net. By broadening your search to include talented professionals from around the country — and even around the world — you increase the likelihood you’ll end up with a larger pool of talent to draw from.

4. Update your status regularly

Be sure to post regular status updates on LinkedIn to establish and build a presence on the platform. Whenever a job opens up and you have a link to it online, write a quick message saying your company is hiring and show potential applicants where to go. You’ll also be able to see who’s interacting with your posts via likes and comments. In some cases, you may identify great candidates just from that data.

5. Advertise jobs on the platform

LinkedIn offers a number of job posting packages. It costs $195 to post one job while a five-listing package costs $145 per job and a 10-listing package costs $115 per job.

You might not have to publish job postings for every position you’re recruiting for. But when you want to be sure you’re hiring the best person for an important job, it’s probably worth advertising it to a larger audience. When you do post job listings, make sure they’re as complete and detailed as possible. The more thorough your job posts, the more likely you are to attract only interested candidates.

6. Study your analytics to refine your approach

If you’re not yet utilizing LinkedIn’s analytics feature, what are you waiting for? The social platform allows you to gain insight into who’s interacting with your posts, who’s reading them, and which specific posts are most successful. Armed with that information, you’re able to tailor future posts in a way that you know will attract more eyeballs.

Have you used LinkedIn for recruiting? If so, what other tips would you give your fellow recruiters?